Introduction
Since the end of the Second World War, Poles in the UK have formed networks between other Polish migrants, and across European borders. The frequency of these transnational connections and how they are maintained by migrants has been made easier than ever with the internet and low-cost European flights. This has been made significantly more attainable after Poland’s accession to the EU as part of the A8 in 2004, bringing free movement, work opportunities, and easier travel to millions of Poles both within and outside of Poland. These connections, whether physical or virtual, can arguably cause migrants to feel as if they are in more than one place at the same time, but also access a version of life without borders. This article explores this borderless, transnational concept in the context of social, economic, and political interests. Transnational interests, experiences of homesickness, and migrant nostalgia are also examined. Nostalgia has also been included, which in this article is discussed in light of Svetlana Boym’s concepts of restorative and reflective nostalgia (Boym, 2007).
This article has three aims, (1) to explore how Polish migrants in the UK experience nostalgia and homesickness, (2) to observe the extent to which Polish migrants in the UK maintain transnational interests, and (3) to identify and analyze the relationship between the maintenance (or neglect) of transnational interests, and nostalgia and homesickness. These aims will assist in answering the overarching question of this study: Where do the interests of Polish migrants in the UK lie?
Polish migration to the UK has been observed in three “waves”: Post-Second World War, the rise of the Solidarity movement, and post-EU accession. Initial migration, mostly occurring in 1947–48 involved the settlement of Polish refugees through the European Volunteer Work scheme and the Polish Resettlement Act, in which Polish troops who had fought for the Allies and their families migrated to the UK (Burrell, 2018). Around 160,000 Poles settled in the UK in this manner (Elgenius, 2017). By the 1980s this community was well-established, especially in West London areas such as Hammersmith and Ealing, drawing in further migration across the Iron Curtain because of these Polish networks, churches, and informal labor markets (Drinkwater et al., 2010). Migration in this manner heightened during the rise of the Solidarity movement and the imposition of Martial Law in the 1980s, due to political persecution. Burrell has argued that Polish migrants arriving in the UK while Poland was socialist/communist experienced differences between themselves and the existing British population, in part, due to the political nature of this movement (Burrell, 2018). The third wave resulted from EU Enlargement in 2004, in which eight Central and East European states (or the A8) joined the European Union. At this time, unemployment in Poland reached 21%, prompting many young people to migrate westwards for temporary work opportunities (Elgenius, 2017).
This third wave, while significant as the largest wave of Polish migrants in the UK, also marked a change in the type of Polish migration, or more specifically migration strategies. Those arriving in the UK post-accession have been characterized as temporary, staying in the UK to build up capital before returning to Poland or moving on elsewhere within the EU. Drinkwater and Garapich’s 2015 study found that 32% of participants did not know how long they intended to stay in the UK upon arrival (Drinkwater & Garapich, 2015). The temporary and unplanned characteristics of post-accession Polish migration has been described as “deliberate indeterminacy” (McGhee et al., 2017: 2111), in which the future for Polish migrants, in both time and location, is left deliberately open. Overall, the number of Polish-born people in England and Wales alone was 579,000 in 2011, rising to 743,000 by 2021 (ONS, 2021); Poles are now the second largest migrant group in the UK, after a decrease post-Brexit. Anxiety brought on by Brexit was a contributing factor in pushing Polish migrants to return to Poland or to move elsewhere within the EU, while simultaneously pushing indeterminant migrants to cement their futures in the UK (McGhee et al., 2017).
This article explores the experiences and perceptions of those who stayed, arriving either during the second or third wave. It utilizes interviews with 10 Polish migrants living in the UK in order to gain an in-depth look into their experiences and feelings about Poland, the UK, and migration in general. Pre-prepared questions were arranged in three clusters pertaining to the concepts of nostalgia, homesickness, and transnational interests for ease of transcription and subsequent analysis; however, subjects of conversation were not limited to these three topics. This allowed participants to speak freely, while also demonstrating the complex nature of migrant experience and motivations. The interviews were conducted in English. Participants were all over 18, had lived in the UK for at least nine years, and most had experienced both working and studying in the UK. Ample time living in the UK allowed for some degree of nostalgia/memories of the past.
Nostalgia and homesickness
Boym has famously classed nostalgia into two types: restorative and reflective. Restorative nostalgia refers to a “transhistorical reconstruction of the lost home” (Boym, 2007: para 19), in which a sense of loss of cohesive community is built upon to create a “comforting collective script” (ibid.: para 21). For this lost community, whether imagined or real, restorative nostalgia emphasizes its origins, historical myths, and folklore, in an attempt to reconstruct and return to a lost homeland. Reflective nostalgia on the other hand is characterized by flexibility rather than stasis (ibid.) Rather than dwelling on the past and seeking its reconstruction, it provides a base for further possibilities for the future, including opportunities to treat the past with irony and humor (ibid.). Overall, Boym’s considerations of nostalgia can be defined as a feeling of loss from one’s origin, a loss characterized as “a romance with one’s own fantasy” (ibid., para 1). What distinguishes the restorative from the reflective is the nature of this romance with one’s past.
In a socio-political context, Kotwas and Kubik also view nostalgia as one’s relationship with the imaginary past. To them, nostalgia is subjective and motivates individuals to pursue certain actions in the present based on which parts of the past they long to resurrect (Kotwas & Kubik, 2022). Kotwas and Kubik also emphasize the emotional weight of nostalgia, as “Nostalgic invocations of the past are saturated with a powerful emotion, a bittersweet longing. One yearns for a past moment or period – however purely imaginary it may be – and attempts to dwell in it” (ibid.: 1361). While the emotive aspect may certainly be the case for restorative nostalgia, especially in a politicized context, reflective nostalgia is less personal but rather pragmatic. The past is not an endangered entity that must be restored to maintain community cohesion, but rather a concept to learn from in the present. May, in a study of accounts from the Mass Observation Project, also emphasized the past as a source of comfort and/or bitterness for individuals (May, 2017). For several participants, the past represented a sense of belonging they had since lost, a “belonging from afar” (ibid.: 411) in which past memories evoke a belonging that also brings both pain and pleasure when dwelled upon in the present. Here, nostalgia is a bittersweet experience for people who miss the past and the positive memories it represents, to an extent their sense of belonging remains in this past.
Nostalgia can be dwelled upon through the cultural practices of migrants. For example, Vazquez-Medina and Medina studied the “La Pulga” market in California, and its contribution to transnational migrant identity for Mexican migrants (Vazquez-Medina & Medina, 2015). They found the everyday market movements to represent an arena for both identities and memories to be conveyed, through the flavors and textures of the Mexican food sold (ibid.). In this context, memories of a homeland were reproduced in several senses every day through this cultural practice.
When researching Polish migrant nostalgia in the UK, Brown used Boym’s typology of nostalgia to describe migrant attitudes to Poland. Specifically, they focused on the differences between Polish migrants of the different “waves”. Brown argued that post-war Polish migrants experienced restorative nostalgia through the celebration of Poland “as an imagined community created in the context of their stories and memories” (Brown, 2011: 231), largely due to their journeys to the UK being characterized by exile and escape. In contrast, post-accession migrants’ nostalgia took a more reflective manner, as they recognized both positive and negative aspects and realities of Poland, in part a result of frequent communication and connection with their homeland (ibid.). The distinction between types of nostalgia felt by migrants may be influenced by perceived temporal and spatial distance; post-war migrants who left communist Poland which was not easily contactable due to technological and travel restraints, feel a greater distance looking at Poland from the UK, compared to those arriving post-accession. Post-accession Polish migrants with the ability to maintain both digital and face-to-face contact with Poland face its everyday realities more frequently, whether positive or negative.
Homesickness and nostalgia are two similar concepts that often go hand in hand, but they are neither inherent nor mutually exclusive to each other. While nostalgia can be considered more temporal in nature, a longing for a time and its socio-cultural associations, homesickness is a negative emotion characterized by “feelings of grief and distress as a result of being away from home” (Jetten & Smeekes, 2019: 132). Hence, while nostalgia refers to the longing for a time since passed, homesickness encapsulates the negative emotions associated with missing a location one considers home. The implication of homesickness is that where you are is not viewed as home. Nakajima’s definition of homesickness reflects this zero-sum relationship with the concept of home, in which homesickness “keeps increasing while a migrant stays abroad and can be reset to zero only by returning to their home country” (Nakajima, 2019: 3451). This assumes migrants cannot feel like they have two or more places to call home.
Hack-Poley found four contributing factors to the feeling of homesickness: cultural distance, fear of inability to adapt, language gap and increased and/or different responsibilities for example through a new job (Hack-Poley, 2012). Their study also found that the feeling of homesickness is exacerbated when migrants experienced a combination of these factors (ibid.). Poblete argues that homesickness arises from perceived or real vulnerability in an unfamiliar environment, and idealization of one’s previous environment which causes “increasing negative thoughts about the new environment” (Poblete et al., 2023: 907). This is most negatively felt in migration circumstances characterized by exile or force, due to the unplanned halting of life plans, loss and/or separation of family, and lack of farewell (Colomer, 2013). In such cases, adaptation to the new environment is more challenging, as lack of preparedness and desire to migrate exacerbate these circumstances (ibid.). However, Poblete also notes the positive effects of homesickness. In their study on migrant entrepreneurs, homesickness and memories of home influenced new venture ideas based on representations of home, and increased collaboration and trust in other migrants from the same sending country (ibid.). Hence, while homesickness is a negative emotion and experience, it can have positive effects long-term depending on how the feeling is utilized by the individual.
Homesickness has also been described as a side effect of loneliness or social isolation, particularly when migrants have extended interactions with people from their sending society due to the subsequent separation (Tilburg & Vingerhoets, 2007). In this sense, it is not loneliness itself that is the cause, but the perceived difference in comfort for migrants in different social environments. This characterization links to Hack-Poley’s mitigating factors (or coping strategies) for migrant homesickness, specifically the social paradigm which includes forming social networks within the receiving country to reduce perceived isolation (Hack-Poley, 2012).
In their study of migrant nostalgia in the Netherlands, Jetten and Smeekes sought not to use the term nostalgia to describe homesickness through careful phrasing of their surveys. To class a feeling as nostalgia rather than homesickness, they phrased questions around three criteria; what was being longed for, the nature of this feeling (positive or negative), and the type of separation (temporal or spatial) (Jetten & Smeekes, 2019). This allows for homesickness, a spatial longing for home, to be separated from nostalgia, a memory of the imagined time and what that time meant for the holder. Poblete et al. also make this distinction, describing homesickness as “the dark side of nostalgia” (Poblete et al., 2023: 905), due to its negativity which is not inherent to nostalgia.
Transnationalism
McGhee considers autobiographical experiences of individuals that link and operate across borders and temporalities (McGhee et al., 2012). Kusek also shares the sentiment that transnationalism is the maintenance of connections in spite of borders, through multi-faceted linkages between two or more places, which contribute “to the facilitation of the growth of migrant mobility” (Kusek, 2015: 106). Conversely, Bell emphasizes the lack of connection to sending and receiving country for migrants, as transnationalism is the experience of “the likely state of ambivalence and in-betweenness” (Bell, 2016: 81).
These manners of viewing transnationalism are not mutually exclusive. Transnationalism is characterized by flexibility, as the practices and expectations of migration adapt over time as individuals experience migration in different manners (Rodriguez, 2017). The flexibility and renegotiation demonstrated by transnationalism is also a form of migrant identity building. Ryan argues migrants’ identities are largely negotiated through the maintenance or neglect of cultural practices in the host country, and through relationships with other groups (Ryan, 2010). This is also applicable to collectives, as in a study of transnational religious life, Levitt argues that groups “are open, constantly evolving systems, that operate in multiple fields transcending national boundaries” (Levitt, 2004: 15). Therefore, the maintenance of transnational practices can allow migrants to maintain two or more identities simultaneously, as opposed to feeling the need/pressure to pick one over the other.
Additionally, maintaining such connections can result in a new identity rather than a lack of identity, as Bell describes a “double consciousness” (Bell, 2016). This is particularly the case in the context of transnational interests, meaning the maintenance of one’s social, political and economic interests in both the sending and receiving societies. Like transnational practices, these are “neither singular nor stable” (Rodriguez, 2017: 280) due to the varied forms of movement and experiences of migrants. For example, the extent to which migrants keep up with news and/or events in their sending country can vary over time, out of deliberate choice or as something that weans gradually over time away from “home”. Additionally, transnational connections can elongate or shorten the perceived distance between the sending and receiving society for migrants. Maintaining transnational connections and being kept up to date with events in the sending society have multiple purposes, including identity formation, alleviation of homesickness, and proximity shortening.
Results
Several themes emerged across participants that were relevant to this study. They include (1) reflective nostalgia, (2) the concept of “home”, (3) homesickness, (4) migrant networks as information channels, and (5) the value of voting.
I. Reflective nostalgia
Most participants expressed elements of reflective nostalgia. For example, discussions of the Poland they had left were treated with some form of cynicism, negative attributes of the past were discussed openly, and most participants agreed that their opinion of Poland had improved over time. The past was treated with particular disdain and/or sadness by participants who left Poland while it was under the communist regime. For example, Aniela described the dreariness she associated with Poland in the 1980s compared to her view of progression and economic growth today:
“Gray in color. When I look back, I think it was pretty scary, but I didn’t realize it when I was there … I see it as an unfriendly gray system, fairly oppressive in those days” versus now “People are much more affluent … the area I go to is quite a wealthy part of Poland, and they had local elections quite recently, and the next mayor of the city is likely to be a woman, when so far it was all men … so that is really exciting”. (Aniela, arrived 1985)
This portrayal of the past as something to grow from rather than return to demonstrates Boym’s concept of reflective nostalgia, in which the past is often perceived as a foundation for “a multitude of potentialities and possibilities of historic development” (Boym, 2007: para 27). Rather than dwell on the past or create an imagined past which is characteristic of nostalgia (Kotwas & Kubik, 2022), participants were pragmatic and often emotionally detached from their views of Poland’s past. This was also notable in participants who left rural areas of Poland before arriving in the UK, associating Poland’s past with economic struggle and observing how their families had begun to prosper over time. For example, Lena, who migrated from a small village outside Katowice, described how her mother returned to a different Poland:
My mum moved back there and the life she and everyone else is living, the things they can afford and do, back then I couldn’t imagine that my family would do that. I have family going on holidays abroad … when I was in Poland it was like a miracle to even go on a holiday within the country. (Lena, arrived 2015)
Joanna, originally from a village an hour away from Wroclaw, also shared the lack of opportunities in Poland that she was able to access in the UK:
I understand why my mum moved here … if we stayed the quality of life would be a lot lower. The bachelor’s or master’s that I study would not have been an option there. (Joanna, arrived 2007)
This experience particularly of post-accession Polish migrants reflects Brown’s research, in which Poland is easily reachable and regularly visited, therefore the positive and negatives of everyday realities of life in Poland are frequently interacted with (Brown, 2011). However, Brown also argues the nostalgia of Polish migrants who arrived in the 1980s is defined by a joint identity which is formed between the host country and their homeland (ibid.). Of the four participants who were of this demographic, only half shared this sentiment.
Magda and Bartek, while acknowledging the negatives of the Poland they left behind, also expressed a sense of loss of community characteristic with Boym’s restorative nostalgia (Boym, 2007). While Bartek associated this with missing his youth rather than Poland itself, Magda associated the Poland she left with close connections between people:
Now there is a degree of nostalgia … but this is to do with the process of aging and having fond memories of youth. Poland has moved on and it’s a much better country than it used to be. But on the personal level, yes, I miss it in many respects in the same way as I miss my youth and my friends. (Bartek, arrived 1981)
[There was] a shortage of food … but very close connections with people. We would help each other. We rely on each other, there’s a warm connection … Maybe because everyone was vulnerable. (Magda, arrived 1985)
Here, while neither Bartek nor Magda demonstrated a strong desire to reconstruct what they missed about their pasts in Poland indicative of reconstructive nostalgia (Boym, 2007) community remained an object of loss for these participants. It should be noted that both Magda and Bartek’s arrivals in the UK were not entirely by choice. While visiting the UK, Magda met her now husband who had begun to set up life in the UK, and Bartek had arrived to conduct research as a student and remained due to the introduction of Martial Law. This demonstrates that to some extent, the manner and circumstances of migrants’ arrival in a host country can affect their perceptions of their homeland (Brown, 2011).
II. Where is “home”?
The concept of home was very divided within the sample. While almost all did not consider the UK as home upon arrival, or even within the first few years of living in the UK, at present only three considered only the UK as their home. Others described feeling neither at home in the UK nor Poland, while others expressed both countries as home. For example, when asked whether the UK or Poland felt like home, participants’ responses included:
I remember until a certain point that I felt like Poland was my home, but now when I go there it’s not the same … [about the UK] I understand this country very well, but I don’t think deep down it’s really my home. (Magda, arrived 1985)
Neither. I haven’t lived there [Poland] for years so it’s not really my home … but I haven’t found my place yet. I feel like I’ve been here too long, and I’ve started to resent it. (Lena, arrived 2015)
The UK is actually home … when my husband is on a job in Poland, and he comes back to England it’s home. Home is where your family is. (Maria, arrived 2004)
I think I see Poland and the UK both as my homeland, especially when we bought a house … it feels like it’s not a temporary situation … And because of the experience living abroad, I’m not “pure Polish” anymore … immigration reshapes you. (Julia, arrived 2011)
It also appeared that this feeling of home was not correlated to the year of arrival in the UK, but rather the concept was related to what participants had accomplished in the UK. Accomplishments viewed as indicators of the UK becoming home included buying a house, working in a job they found success in, and raising a family in the UK; in fact, family (especially children) appeared to represent an anchor in the UK for several participants, for example, Marcin:
I’ve spent most of my life in the UK, and all of my working life, and my family is here … so for a long time it’s felt like home. (Marcin, arrived 1983)
Bartek anomalously demonstrated the reverse, associating “home” with goals he had not yet achieved. When discussing why neither the UK nor Poland felt like home, he stated:
I haven’t got any challenges, and for me home is where I have some activities, where I can feel useful. And it’s nothing to do with the nationality or where you were born … Home is basically a state of mind that something is happening. (Bartek, arrived 1981)
Those who expressed feeling neither at home in the UK nor in Poland attributed this to a lack of personal identity. Conversely, those who described both the UK and Poland as home found different types of connections to both countries. Aniela for example described how she felt in-between, loving life in London but always feeling connected to her homeland. This was also the case for Szymon and Grzegorz, who arrived in the UK in their 40s. For example, Szymon, who considered the UK somewhat home due to acquiring British citizenship stated:
Poland is still more my home because I left when I was 40 … most of my life happened in my hometown, not here. My time here is quite hard work. (Szymon, arrived 2003)
The prevalence of in-betweenness demonstrated by those who felt as if the UK and Poland were both or neither their home reflects Bell’s “double consciousness”, in which migrant identities are often molded around transnationalism and ambivalence (Bell, 2016).
Overall, three participants considered the UK home, three neither the UK nor Poland, and four both.
III. Homesickness
Participants noted several things they missed about Poland, with only three stating they did not miss Poland at all. These ranged from the countryside, specific smells associated with childhood memories, cheaper or better-quality products not available in the UK, and relationships with others. Julia’s language when describing Poland was particularly romantic, for example:
I miss Poland. I travel to Poland a lot and it’s my childhood, my homeland. So I’ve got all these senses associated to the memories. I can smell the pine or the lake where my mum has a house, or the sound of the snow … I would say it’s these senses rather than missing people. (Julia, arrived 2011)
Julia also noted how she does not miss specific people due to the ease of contacting them. While Julia expressed how she missed Poland, it appears the memories associated with Poland are the true source of homesickness, or rather nostalgia. As Jetten and Smeekes distinguish, while homesickness refers to the negative emotions associated with separation from a place, nostalgia concerns “a longing for happy memories of the past” (Jetten & Smeekes, 2019: 132).
Others such as Lena demonstrated how homesickness can worsen or intensify after spending time in Poland:
I feel [homesick] when I come back here, and then when I get back into the habit of everyday life and get busy here, then it will dissipate … Now it’s [Poland] a lot more meaningful, I’ve reconnected with it again. That’s probably why I go so often. (Lena, arrived 2015)
This reflects Tilburg and Vingerhoets’s characterization of homesickness as a symptom of perceived loneliness or isolation which is exacerbated by interactions with “home” due to the subsequent separation (Tilburg & Vingerhoets, 2007). However, five participants described not experiencing homesickness for their first few years in the UK, despite recently leaving family and friends behind. Aniela represents this perspective, not visiting Poland for the first three years after arriving in the UK:
I remember in the first few years it was all so exciting to be here and achieve and learn so I didn’t really feel homesick … I had lots of friends and eventually I just thought this was really my place. (Aniela, arrived 1985)
This was a sentiment shared by Bartek, despite staying in the UK due to Martial Law:
I was so ambitious, I was focused on myself and my career, in many ways, a selfish way … It was not the case of going back to Poland, it was the case of being able to get out. (Bartek, arrived 1981)
This initial excitement and new focus associated with arriving in a new country overriding feelings of homesickness was also shared by Lena, Marcin, and Szymon. While some of these participants never experienced homesickness after they had felt settled in the UK, others began to miss Poland after the novelty of migration had worn off.
In some cases, the initial homesickness experienced was a result of difficulties settling down, a feeling which faded over time as the UK became more familiar. Maria described her first year as stressful, not knowing the environment and not feeling like she belonged, however, these feelings gradually left as she got the know the UK better:
It was a really gradual process, to the point that you don’t really notice it. You find your way around, you get to know the environment and you know the culture, but it takes a while … it wasn’t until like a year after [we moved] that we thought “yes, this is our home now”. (Maria, arrived 2004)
This was also shared by Julia, who felt disoriented by the logistics and technicalities of settling into a new country. Grzegorz also shared this view, his first year in the UK being characterized by struggle after losing his first job in the UK:
For me it was horrible. When I lost my job, I was walking around, and I was at the Magistrate’s office. There was a big Union Jack blowing in the wind, and I thought, “Oh no, it’s not my place”. (Grzegorz, arrived 2006)
This links to Hack-Poley and Poblete et al.’s consideration of homesickness, caused by the vulnerability and unfamiliarity of a new environment; the new environment is perceived as being one of difficulty, a view often contradicting previously idealized perceptions of the environment (Hack-Poley, 2012; Poblete et al., 2023). Two participants described how identity struggles and belonging still contributed toward feelings of homesickness in the present, both of which had left Poland in the 1980s. Magda described how she felt she had lost her voice and ability to change things due to her migrant status:
I always feel like a guest, and that I have to be grateful for being here and not try to change anything about social interactions, economic interactions. I should just accept it … If you are a guest at someone’s home, you don’t try to move furniture around. (Magda, arrived 1985)
Bartek, although overall not missing Poland, did miss a feeling of respect he found when meeting other Poles that he felt some Brits did not give him:
When I go to Poland, I feel more respected, more confident, kind of more myself. Whereas in the UK, I’m kind of an unknown quantity. When I’m in Poland and I talk to someone, within two/three minutes we can place each other … whereas here I’m a foreigner and many people assume I don’t know anything. (Bartek, arrived 1981)
While most participants described certain features of their previous lives in Poland that they missed, or features of Poland in general, not all considered themselves “homesick” at present. This was perhaps due to no longer viewing Poland as “home” anymore, or not dwelling on aspects of Poland they missed on a regular basis. Several participants said they had not thought about Poland in a long time. Additionally, five participants attributed not missing Poland very much to the ease of connections, both in person and virtual. For example, Aniela’s transnational perspective epitomized this view, missing Poland to a limited extent as she could visit with ease:
What do I miss?… It’s just an extension to here and now, I suppose I don’t see the border anymore because it’s so easy. (Aniela, arrived 1985)
This was shared by Julia:
I would say it’s these senses rather than missing people. There are WhatsApp video calls, and you can hop on a plane. (Julia, arrived 2011)
This contrasts with Ryan and Mulholland’s findings, as the ease of virtual connections despite the relative proximity to Poland eased feelings of homesickness as opposed to exacerbated in the case of the French migrants they studied (Ryan & Mulholland, 2014). Only three described missing Poland to an extent they would like to return in future, while four described wishing to operate between the two countries in future, the future usually referring to retirement. Overall, while four participants felt homesick upon arrival in the UK, three no longer felt homesick at present. Additionally, seven missed Poland to some extent, while three did not miss Poland at all.
IV. Transnational interests
The extent to which participants kept up with current events in the UK and Poland was somewhat divided for several reasons. While most were in the loop concerning events in Poland, this was mostly through indirect information channels, predominantly through contact with family and friends living in Poland and other migrants in the UK. Additionally, despite all participants being able to vote in Polish elections, only four described doing so at present for reasons including the effort required to vote from the UK and feeling that voting in Polish elections was unfair.
a. Networks as information channels
Polish migrant networks within the UK, as well as interactions with family and friends back in Poland, were the main channels of information for participants regarding events in Poland. For some participants, keeping up (or failing to) with events in Poland also appeared as a form of maintaining or weakening this transnational connection.
For example, Maria noted how her lack of knowledge about current events in Poland has resulted in feeling out of the loop:
I’m not keeping up at all, to the extent that I don’t know what people are talking about sometimes … [my mother] will use names I have never heard before like some politician or famous people, and I have no idea who they are. (Maria, arrived 2004)
In contrast, for Lena keeping up to date, especially with pop culture in Poland represents a connection to her heritage and identity:
Maybe that’s part of my identity crisis, like “Oh my god you’re forgetting about where you’re from” and it just keeps me going. I like reading books in Polish because it keeps up my language because lately, I’ve started making so many mistakes … And when you go back you have something to talk to people about. (Lena, arrived 2015)
Other participants were also deliberate in their pursuit of information about Polish current events, such as Grzegorz and Szymon, who both had access to British and Polish television channels which they watched daily. They attributed the importance of this practice to the desire to return in future and their children still living in Poland. In this case, maintaining transnational interests was not only an act of self-interest, but also for loved ones and how current events affected their lives.
Joanna described how her mother, who also lives in the UK, discusses Polish politics and events with her daughter, however, Joanna chooses not to go out of her way to inform herself due to displeasure with Poland’s political sphere. In contrast, Julia noted how what happens in Poland is part of her everyday contact with her family:
I’m living in the world of politics, what’s going on. And if I can, I vote both in England and in Poland … Also my family is super into politics, my in-laws and my mum. So because I talk to them on the phone, that’s a part of our casual chats. (Julia, arrived 2011)
Similarly, Aniela described how engagement with events in Poland is confined to interactions with friends and family while she is in the UK, but becomes more deliberate when she visits Poland:
My children are here so I concentrate more on what goes on here, but through friends and family network I will hear about what’s happening in Poland … and when I’m there I catch up as I buy local papers to get updated. (Aniela, arrived 1985)
Overall, participants differed in whether they deliberately sought out information about current events in Poland, however, all were kept updated indirectly through friends and family both inside and outside of the UK. Only Grzegorz, Szymon, and Bartek noted deliberately engaging with Polish media from the UK on a regular, if not daily basis. Therefore, while engaging with events in Poland is a deliberate choice for four participants, for all participants information about Poland reached them indirectly through their networks within the UK and across Europe. This highlights the importance of migrant networks as channels of information for others, which can both directly and indirectly assist migrants in decision-making (Elsner et al., 2017).
b. Voting
Opinions toward voting in Polish elections were mixed at present but appeared to change over participants’ time in the UK. Four participants said they do not vote in Polish elections due to not living there, feeling like events in Poland were not relevant to their lives anymore, and therefore they should not vote. For example, Marcin stated:
I never registered and for many years in the past, I was concentrating on my life here … the politics in Poland were never my priority … To make decisions for Poland seems quite unfair to me. (Marcin, arrived 1983)
This perspective reflects Boccagni’s consideration of migrant transnationalism, in which maintaining connections between sending and receiving society is a reciprocal, two-way relationship, through the exertion of “a significant, provable and reciprocal influence on non-migrants in the countries of origin” (Boccagni, 2012: 117). As these four participants described, maintaining a transnational connection through voting would be either an unfair or unnecessary exertion of this influence.
Others, such as Lena and Joanna, describe wishing to participate in Polish elections but feeling restricted due to logistical difficulties. Three participants also expressed disinterest in British elections and events more so than Polish current events, attributing this view to their plans to leave the UK in the coming years. As Lena and Bartek described:
When you think about it, politics takes time to have an impact. As bad as it sounds, I don’t care what happens here. I’m not going to be here. (Lena, arrived 2015)
Politics is very much a topic of conversation with my friends … in my case more so than in the UK. I’m totally disinterested in UK politics. (Bartek, arrived 1981)
While one participant voted in the last Polish election despite never voting since moving to the UK, another experienced the reverse, voting in the first Polish election after Poland’s EU accession but never again. At present, three participants took a more active interest in British political events than Polish. However, as previously described, almost all participants felt somewhat informed about events in Poland, whether due to actively seeking out this information or hearing about events through other Poles. Those who did not view maintaining transnational interests with particular importance/significance attributed this to focusing on their own and their children’s lives in the UK; this was the view of Aniela, Marcin and Maria.
Others such as Gregorz and Szymon expressed equal interest in both Polish and British elections, voting in both at local and national levels. For example, Szymon described traveling to Poland to vote for people relevant to his hometown of Lublin rather than the general list offered to Poles voting abroad:
Last year I flew over for one week to vote in elections and there were local elections a week after Easter so I flew and took my time to go … People ask me why I vote if I live here, but I will go back in a few years and to me it’s important, what will happen, how politics will change. (Szymon, arrived 2003)
These variations of views on how relevant Poland is to participants within the sample are reflective of Rodriguez’s conceptualization of transnational interests, in which migrants’ interests are “neither singular nor stable” due to “numerous forms of movement by people with varied motivations that change over time as the result of the experience of migration” (Rodriguez, 2017: 280). This also reflects the changing priorities and interests of individual migrants over time, such as those who voted in previous Polish elections but over time viewed Poland as less relevant to their lives. For others, the maintenance of interests in Poland was important to their Polish identity, reflecting Ryan’s consideration of transnational connections as a manner of expressing Polishness (Ryan, 2010).
Overall, most participants regularly informed themselves about current events in Poland, though three considered events in the UK more relevant to their lives than events in Poland, while four voted in the last Polish election. It appeared transnational interests reflected how participants viewed home, with few “choosing” one country or the other to maintain focus on.
Relationships and connections
I. Homesickness and transnational interests
The extent to which participants experienced homesickness, and the extent they maintained transnational interests was somewhat correlated. Of the five participants who expressed that they missed little about Poland, only two actively kept updated on current events in Poland. In contrast, of the five participants who missed Poland to some or a large extent, all maintained transnational interests. In other words, of the seven participants who maintained transnational interests, five missed Poland. Of the participants who expressed some degree of homesickness, none neglected transnational connections.
We can also distinguish between those who actively kept updated on current events in Poland versus those who indirectly heard about Poland through conversation with others (passive). Of the nine people who kept up to date with events in Poland, three were inactive in their pursuit of information, their main information channel being other Poles within the UK, while six described their relationship with events in Poland as deliberate through watching Polish news, and buying newspapers and books. Here, the relationship between homesickness and transnational interests becomes more apparent; all three participants who were inactively aware of events in Poland did not express homesickness, while five out of six of those who actively pursued information about Poland felt homesick to some extent.
An interesting distinction found was between people who viewed transnational interests in the practical versus the emotional, identity-driven perspectives. Some participants did not keep up with events in Poland due to them not being relevant to their lives anymore, instead caring more about policy, social, and economic changes in the UK, both for themselves and their children. These participants were also limited in the extent to which they missed Poland, often naming people (e.g. family members) they missed rather than aspects of life in Poland. For example, some described only visiting Poland to see family members during holidays such as Christmas and Easter, but otherwise demonstrating little attachment to Poland. This reflects Ryan’s findings in which attachment to Poland is discussed through relationships with people, rather than attachment to the country itself (Ryan, 2010). Hence, for those who demonstrated this type of attachment (or rather lack thereof), Poland was not relevant to their everyday realities but rather a separate location which loved ones inhabited. In comparison, participants who described the emotional value of maintaining transnational interests, also similarly applied this emotion to missed aspects of Poland. These participants often emphasized the value of connections to Poland due to heritage or identity, the neglect of which implied to mean losing this identity. Here, maintaining interests in Poland provides a link to a missed homeland, rather than missed people within the homeland, therefore adding further emotive and identity-reinforcing value to the maintenance of transnational connections. This perspective links to Bell’s consideration of transnational connections as a negotiation of belonging, often during states of identity ambivalence (Bell, 2016).
Hence, we can say with some confidence, based on the sample interviewed, that (1) Polish migrants who experience homesickness tend to actively sustain interests outside of the border of the host country and (2) Polish migrants who do not experience homesickness tend to be inactive/passive in seeking up-to-date information about Poland.
II. Homesickness and nostalgia
While most participants demonstrated reflective nostalgia to some extent, three participants demonstrated some form of restorative nostalgia, and to an extent their views of Poland could be described as “nostalgic”. Of these three participants, two also experienced homesickness. In reverse, of the seven participants who expressed reflective nostalgia, only two experienced homesickness. Therefore, there is little evidence to demonstrate a relationship between the type of nostalgia experienced by Polish migrants, and the degree of homesickness felt.
This could be a result of the wide range of migration motivations and circumstances. For example, of the three participants who demonstrated restorative nostalgia, two did not choose to stay in the UK, rather staying due to changes in circumstance. In these cases, the homesickness of these participants may be a result of missing the Poland they left in the past, because at the time they did not think they would be leaving. This may be particularly the case for Polish migrants who migrated in the 1980s, a movement which for many was politically motivated. Migration circumstances of this manner, in the worst cases defined by exile, involve a halting or breaking of life plans, unplanned distance from family, and forced adaptations to new environments (Colomer, 2013). While this circumstance was not applicable to any participants, it was a sentiment partially reflected in participants whose migration to the UK was unplanned and/or unintentional.
In comparison, the seven participants who demonstrated pragmatic considerations of Poland’s past, varied in the degree of control they had in their movement to the UK. Some were brought to the UK by another person (family or partner), while the rest decided independently to migrate to the UK for work, a change of career, or study. This pattern somewhat reflects the flexibility of reflective nostalgia, in which the past is mediated, renegotiated and built upon, rather than recreated (Boym, 2007). As many Polish migrants’ migration plans are often left open-ended, particularly those migrating after 2004 (Drinkwater & Garapich, 2015), flexibility is associated with opportunity and potentialities for development rather than something to be feared. That is not to say Polish migrants who are flexible in this manner are immune to feelings of homesickness; several non-nostalgic participants described homesickness they experienced within their first few years in the UK. However, the degree of adjustment to a new environment was mirrored by reflective attitudes toward Poland and its past in most cases, as five out of seven participants who held reflective nostalgia were no longer homesick.
While there is not enough evidence to demonstrate a strong relationship between homesickness and the type of nostalgia experienced by Polish migrants in the UK, there is some evidence that the circumstance of migration is linked to experiences of restorative versus reflective nostalgia, a partial reflection of Brown’s findings of the effect of migrants’ circumstances on the perception of their homeland (Brown, 2011).
III. Transnational interests and nostalgia
Out of the nine participants who maintained transnational interests, six did not feel nostalgic for Poland’s past, two felt some longing for Poland’s past, and one held restorative nostalgia to some extent. Of the three participants who were passive in their transnational interests, none felt nostalgic about Poland. In comparison, half of those who were active in keeping up to date with current events in Poland experienced restorative nostalgia to some extent, and all participants who demonstrated restorative nostalgia actively sought out information on current events in Poland.
It is therefore difficult to identify a strong relationship between nostalgia and transnational interests, until we observe transnational interests in active versus passive manners. Polish migrants who experienced restorative nostalgia for Poland’s past were more likely to be active in their pursuit of information about Polish current events. Additionally, Polish migrants who were more passive in their transnational interests were unlikely to experience nostalgia for Poland. These findings reflect Boccagni’s definition of migrant transnationalism, which includes “the diverse complex of the social relationships and practices developing at a distance (and of the identifications underpinning them)” (Boccagni, 2012: 120). As migrant transnationalism is underpinned by identity, migrants who do not associate themselves emotionally or ontologically with Poland’s past are less likely to hold weight to Poland’s future. In reverse, for Polish migrants who long for Poland’s past, Poland’s present and future matters more, therefore the pursuit of information is more important to the individual’s sense of identity. This is not to say events in Poland are not important to migrants whose transnational interests are largely passive, however, their identity is not associated in relation to Poland’s path (past, present and future).
Additionally, restorative nostalgia builds upon the idea of the lost home, community, and cohesion, offering a “collective script for individual longing” (Boym, 2007: para 21) as comfort for this loss. For some migrants, the present maintenance of transnational connections is an extension of their personal connections to Poland, whether this Poland is one of the past or present. In other words, Poland represents a nostalgia often of youth and friendships since lost for some migrants, and actively seeking information on Poland’s current events is a reminder of this missed past. While this was only the case for two participants in this study, the sentiment is an emotionally charged relationship that migrants may either dwell on with longing, or find comfort in.
IV. “Home” and homesickness
Three participants considered the UK home, and did not experience homesickness for Poland at present. This relationship may be a given, as such participants did not feel homesick for what they no longer considered their home, however two still missed some specific aspects of Poland. While none of the participants considered only Poland as home, this may have been due to the amount of time participants had spent in the UK, which in this sample was at least nine years. Participants who considered neither or both the UK and Poland as home varied in the extent to which they missed Poland and experienced homesickness. Of the four who felt at home in both countries, one missed Poland very little/not at all, one to some extent, and two to a large extent. Additionally, while 2/3 of those who considered neither country as home largely missed Poland, one did not.
Overall, while 7/10 participants demonstrated some feeling of in-betweenness in which country they considered home, this was very loosely correlated to their experiences of homesickness; two did not miss Poland, one missed Poland to some extent, and four missed Poland to a large extent. The strongest relationship was that between participants who did not miss Poland and considered the UK home, however, the relevant proportion of the sample is too small to say this relationship is inherent.
These findings reflect a misconception of migrant homesickness as a zero-sum relationship reflective of Nakajima’s definition of homesickness (Nakajima, 2019). In this conceptualization, “home” meaning the sending country, is missed until a new “home” is founded in the receiving country: one home is missed and dwelled upon until being replaced with another. Instead, these results have demonstrated that where Polish migrants consider home is not inherently correlated with homesickness but is rather a renegotiation of identity and “roots” in a similar manner to transnational connections previously observed. Several participants shared this sentiment, particularly those who viewed neither or both the UK and Poland as home, acknowledging their ethnic and cultural roots in Poland alongside (rather than instead of) their practical lives and livelihoods in the UK.
Conclusion
This study has found the following five relationships between nostalgia, homesickness, and transnational interests in Polish migrants in the UK:
Polish migrants who experience homesickness are more likely to actively sustain interests outside of the border of the host country (transnational interests)
Polish migrants who experience nostalgia for Poland’s past are more likely to be active in their pursuit of information about Poland.
Polish migrants who do not experience homesickness are more likely to be inactive/passive in seeking up-to-date information about Poland.
Polish migrants who are more passive in their transnational interests are unlikely to experience nostalgia for Poland.
The circumstance of migration is somewhat linked to experiences of restorative versus reflective nostalgia.
For Polish migrants who miss Poland, especially to the extent of feeling homesick, their interests are more likely to lie in both the UK and Poland. For homesick Polish migrants, transnational interests and the pursuit of information about what happens in Poland reflects previous studies on transnational practices, in that migrants maintain the everyday cultural aspects of the sending society from afar despite borders (Boccagni, 2012). For migrants experiencing homesickness, maintaining transnational interests can make Poland feel closer to their everyday realities despite living in the UK. This is most significant for Polish migrants who did not plan to live in the UK. In comparison, Polish migrants who express little to no homesickness maintain interests primarily in the UK. Their knowledge of Polish current events tends to be limited by prioritization of their lives in the UK, but without deliberately shutting out the information channels their personal networks provide. This does not mean to say non-homesick and non-nostalgic Polish migrants have no transnational interests, however, the importance attached to them is significantly lower compared to Poles who miss Poland.